A Vindication of the Concept of Race
01/15/2010
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

The prestigious philosophy of science journal Biology and Philosophy has published an attack on the Race Does Not Exist conventional wisdom:

Race: a social destruction of a biological concept
Neven Sesardic
Received: 11 August 2009 / Accepted: 22 December 2009

Abstract: It is nowadays a dominant opinion in a number of disciplines (anthropology, genetics, psychology, philosophy of science) that the taxonomy of human races does not make much biological sense. My aim is to challenge the arguments that are usually thought to invalidate the biological concept of race. I will try to show that the way ””race’’ was defined by biologists several decades ago (by Dobzhansky and others) is in no way discredited by conceptual criticisms that are now fashionable and widely regarded as cogent. These criticisms often arbitrarily burden the biological category of race with some implausible connotations, which then opens the path for a quick eliminative move. However, when properly understood, the biological notion of race proves remarkably resistant to these deconstructive attempts. Moreover, by analyzing statements of some leading contemporary scholars who support social constructivism about race, I hope to demonstrate that their eliminativist views are actually in conflict with what the best contemporary science tells us about human genetic variation.

Those who subscribe to the opinion that there are no human races are obviously ignorant of modern biology.
Ernst Mayr, 2002

Print Friendly and PDF